


A Quiet Dawn

by LadyKyrin



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Warnings to be included at start of each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6619447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKyrin/pseuds/LadyKyrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>~ Discontinued (for a long time, at least) ~</p><p>In a world where one cannot die until they have made contact with their soulmate, a single touch can change a life. Grantaire knows this; he has watched it happen, just as he has watched the wounds on his wrists seal themselves and vanish almost before his stroke has finished. He waits for the day the cuts stop healing. He waits for the day it can all end. </p><p>On the other side of Paris, Enjolras has watched it happen, too. He has seen bullets rend flesh; has seen proof that having someone to cradle you as you bleed will do nothing to save your life. He's looked in the mirror and seen the blood in his hair, but never the wounds from which it spilled. He dreads the day he begins to see them. He dreads the day that anything but his cause gains the ability to claim his life.</p><p>One day, they collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys! I know I haven't been around much as of late, but I swear I'm still alive. This chapter is nearly a month in the making, so I really hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Fic title from Allman Brown's "Rivers," feat. Robyn Sherwell.

_Plié._

_Attitude devant._

_Pirouette en dedans._

_Fouetté en tournant en dehors._

Legs straining, Grantaire settled back into first position, pausing there for only a moment before he let his shoulders slump and his eyes close. Sweat itched on his brow; his breaths came fast and shallow, making him quiver from head to toe, and the ache that was starting to take root in his thighs and back served as a painful reminder that he’d been practicing for over three hours now. Grimacing, he reached for a towel — and spluttered indignantly as one slapped the back of his head.

“Please, clean up,” said a familiar voice, silken and lofty. “I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t stink up the studio.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes and started to scrub at his sweat-damp hair, turning as he went to face his dance partner and friend. “Ah, surely you are too kind to me, Floréal.”

Floréal arched a dark, perfect brow and leaned on the barre, having just executed a faultless _battement fondu développé_. “I am not kind.” Her slippered feet glided seamlessly into second position, and she sank into a _grand plié_ so deep that Grantaire whistled. “I am simply honest.”

Grantaire corrected her shoulders with an absent brush of his fingers. “What some call honest, others might call cruel.”

“Indeed,” she agreed, rising again with a light, effortless fluidity that Grantaire had always envied. “But you are not _others,_ now, are you, R?”

“You are right; I am not.” Grantaire wiped his brow, his collarbone, the back of his neck. The ache in his limbs was turning to fire, but he found himself relishing the burn — it was proof that he had worked hard, that he had done something well. 

“When are you leaving?” he asked, tossing the damp towel onto the bench and glancing about the dim, drab space. Windows were hard to come by in the studio; there was only one in this practice room, thrown wide open and lit to blinding white by the fall sunshine. Through it filtered the familiar cacophony of Paris: carts clattering, people shouting, strains of music carried on a playful breeze. It was late September, when fall and summer clashed in a fleeting burst of golden splendor, cutting the thick honey heat of August with the chill winds of approaching October. There was no lovelier time of year.

Grantaire breathed deeply and gripped his elbows. There was no lovelier time of year — but there was also a fresh canvas (and a fresh bottle of wine) waiting for him at home.

“That depends,” Floréal said, lowering her heels to the floor. Grantaire had nearly forgotten he’d asked her a question. “When are _you_ leaving?”

He shrugged, rolling a kink out of his neck. “Now. In an hour. Whenever they kick us out. Everyone else seems to be busy today — some sort of meeting, not to my taste, they said.” He bowed with a flourish. “I am yours to command, milady.”

“Milady,” Floréal mused, a wicked grin gathering on her full, dark lips. “I like it.” She tossed out an imperious hand. “Take me outside, monsieur.”

With a theatrical click of his heels, Grantaire moved to Floréal’s side, and she threaded their arms together. The adjacent hallway was narrow, quiet, and barely lit, flooded instantly with the echoes of their footsteps as they strolled through. Grantaire had once said that Floréal was never _not_ dancing: even now she moved lightly, fluidly, head balanced over shoulders, shoulders balanced over hips, hips balanced over delicately pointed toes. Her head and chin were carried high; Grantaire knew that the brown of her slim, comely throat had deepened with the summer, and would swiftly fade again come winter. The curve of her mouth was haughty but not hateful. It was her mouth that had first drawn Grantaire — full, soft, always ready to tip into either a smirk, a scowl, or, on rare occasions, a simple smile (though no one ever knew which one it would be until it appeared). No words ever crossed those lips without careful calculation, and once they were loosed upon the world they could do whatever she wished them to: cut, caress, compel, kindle. It had not taken Grantaire much time to realize that he would rather hear those words than taste their beginnings, and it had taken Floréal even less to decide that those same words could fetch her a prettier face (and with it, prettier sums in prettier pockets). 

So they danced together, and drank together, and quarreled only over who picked up the tab.

“The summer is nearly gone,” said Floréal, twirling lightly away from him and back again as they emerged into the foyer, “and I do not intend to let you waste the last of it.”  Her dress fluttered, soft as spun sugar, but Grantaire knew that the body beneath was hard with lean, well-honed muscle. “We’re going dancing.”

“Dancing,” Grantaire repeated, and stumbling as she hauled him along. “Floréal, my darling, I wish that this duty did not fall to me, but I fear there is something I must explain to you—“

“Don’t be snide.” Floréal accompanied this with a roll of her eyes. “I mean _real_ dancing. With music. And an audience. And _fun.”_

On the last word, she kicked open the front doors, drowning them both in warm white gold. Grantaire faltered, blinking in the sudden illumination, and Floréal let out a bright, joyful whoop, like a young songbird that had just cast itself from the nest and discovered the rush of the wind beneath its wings. “Come on!” 

Grantaire blinked once more and shook his head, squinting into the glare. The cobbles shone like wet steel in the sunlight, and the houses like gilt; their neat roofs were the color of old, rich leather, sun-bleached from dark brown to a bloody, rusty red. The poor and the rich alike streamed along the sidewalks, counting change or swapping gossip or just drinking in the sunlight, savoring it like the slice of fruit left at the bottom of a juice glass. The last taste of sweetness before there was nothing left at all.

“Come on, R.” The mix of sunlight and elation that bathed Floréal lent her a warm golden glow, lighting up the flecks of brass in her hazel eyes. Her smile was a brilliant slice of white through her dark face. “I’m going, and I’m not going without you.”

A cool breeze touched Grantaire’s face, drying what remained of the stinging sweat. His weight passed uncertainly from his left foot to his right.

Somewhere down the street, a violin struck up a bright, reedy tune.

Floréal, grin broadening by the second, held out her hand.

“Oh, what the hell,” Grantaire muttered, and took it.

Floréal wrapped her fingers tight around his — there went any possibility of escape; Floréal never let go of the things she wanted — and took off at a sprightly run, bounding toward the central square with the easy, long-legged grace of a gazelle. Grantaire, with a roll of his eyes that was wasted on Floréal’s silk-clad back, raced after her.

The music swelled as they neared its source. It was a quartet, at least, perhaps more, and the air they played was vaguely familiar — distantly nostalgic, Grantaire thought, like a childhood memory. His shoulders and heart lifted with it.

“There!”

They had rounded a corner and entered the main square, where a substantial crowd had already gathered. At its center stood a small cluster of musicians — violinists, a flautist, even a young, russet-haired woman with a makeshift drum. Their growing audience revolved at a slight distance around them, clapping to the lively four-four beat, moving to the rhythm but not quite—

“Let’s dance,” Floréal breathed.

Before Grantaire could sputter out a protest, they were in the circle — or, more accurately, _he_ was in the circle.

“Eyes up, dancer!” Floréal sang, and Grantaire turned just in time to catch her around the waist as she leaped past, using her momentum to spin up into her favorite lift. 

“Flor!” he snapped, nearly turning an ankle as they swiveled left. Floréal rebalanced herself expertly, and the onlookers tittered excitedly as Grantaire adjusted his grip and lowered her into a perfect arabesque, her waist taut under his fingers. Floréal’s control of her body was near faultless, and Grantaire barely felt her weight as he moved to partner her. She flashed her eyes at him; behind them, the flautist soared into a solo just as Grantaire took his cue and pushed Floréal away from him, keeping only her hand as she pirouetted once, twice, thrice. Her hair fell like black rain as the wind pulled it from its neat coil, spreading it in a glossy sheet over her back.

When she came whirling toward him a second time, dress billowing like the flags over the Chateau de Versailles, Grantaire was ready. He was only vaguely aware of the other couples that were starting to swirl around them as he found his grip and lifted her up, up, up, sweeping his friend overhead in a move that was no less exhilarating for its familiarity. The music wreathed him, flooded him, consumed him, and his steps quickened with the tempo as the quartet’s excitement grew with the crowd. 

Floréal’s laugh was bright, silvery thing, like the sounds pouring from the flute behind her.

“Let me down,” he heard her say, and he did as she asked, turning her down into his arms and letting her spin away from him, toward the edge of the crowd. Grantaire turned to watch her, a grin creeping across his face as Floréal extended a hand to a mousy, shy-looking young man with a splash of freckles across his nose. When he chewed his lip, his smooth, youthful face etched with anxiety, she caught both of his hands and dragged him into the growing ring of dancers.

“Go on, R!” she shouted over her shoulder, sidestepping neatly to avoid getting her toes trampled by her new dance partner’s clumsy feet. “Don’t just stand there!”

Grantaire hesitated for a only split second before sauntering over to the spectators, hand outstretched. The crowd stirred, and a group of girls began to push at each other, giggling and exchanging hushed words of encouragement. After a moment, a petite young woman with hair like corn silk stumbled forward.

Grantaire smiled at her; her eyes and mouth were so wide open that it was impossible not to. “And your name, _mademoiselle_?”

Her cheeks bloomed like roses. “Lucienne.” 

“Lucienne,” Grantaire repeated, taking her right hand and guiding the left to his shoulder. Her fingers were slim, delicate, and finely-boned; she couldn’t have been older than seventeen, the same age as many of the proteges that the ballet master sometimes asked Grantaire and Floréal to assess. “Ready?”

Her dark eyes brightened with resolve, and she nodded once, sharply. “When you are, monsieur.”

He grinned. “Hold on tight.”

Lucienne yelped as they launched into the dance, but soon picked up on the flow and rhythm of it, letting Grantaire lead her through some simple spins and dips as they made their way around the circle. After a dozen measures or so, she began to relax — gradually, her slight, stiff frame became pliable, following his lead instead of letting him carry her through the steps. 

Miraculously, she only stepped on his toes about four times.

When the song ended, they were one couple of perhaps two dozen, with barely enough room to put down their feet. Lucienne was skipping in place, face aglow.

“Again?” she asked, just as a sleek-haired young man squeezed out of the crowd beside them, wide eyes snapping between Grantaire and Lucienne.

“If it was all right with you, monsieur,” he said, making an awkward attempt to smooth his already-flat lapels, “I was wondering if I might ask _mademoiselle_ for the next dance.”

Grantaire looked to Lucienne, eyes lifted in a question. “Perhaps you should ask the _mademoiselle_ herself.”

The young man inclined his head to Grantaire, looking sheepish, and turned his gaze on Lucienne instead. “ _Mademoiselle?”_

With a thinly concealed grin, Lucienne sank into an elegant curtsy. “I would be honored, monsieur.”

“Then I take my leave,” said Grantaire, bowing to each of them in turn before politely backing away, allowing the newcomer to take his place in the ring of dancers. Lucienne flashed him a brilliant smile of thanks, which he returned with a wink and a nod. “I pray he stays off your toes, _mademoiselle.”_

“And I as well,” she returned, a flicker of amusement in her pale eyes. Then the music started up again, and Grantaire ducked hurriedly out of the way.

Then, from behind him—  a muffled cry.

Grantaire immediately whipped toward the noise.

“Flor?” he called, voice high with panic. He would know his friend’s voice anywhere, knew it so well that the sound cut through the music and laughing voices like a hot knife through butter. “ _Floréal!”_

“R!” came the answering call, and despite the exasperation coloring the dancer’s voice he felt a rush of relief so pure and powerful that he wobbled on his feet. “Grantaire, I am _fine,_ it’s nothing more than a—“

Ignoring her, Grantaire plowed through a cluster of merrymakers to reach his friend, receiving a handful of spluttered curses and hearing none of them. Floréal glowered at him, a hand cupped to her lip.

“Leave it be, R,” she said with a roll of her eyes, but Grantaire cut her a look, and she reluctantly lowered her hand. Almost instantly, Grantaire felt his hackles rise. 

“Who did it?” he hissed, rushing close to take her face in his hands and study her  split lip, which was still oozing a thick, dark trail of blood down her chin. “ _Who touched you?”_

“It was an accident,” she said, looking skyward as if begging God to strike her down and spare her from Grantaire’s fussing. If anyone else had given such an explanation, he would’ve pressed until he was certain it was the truth, but Floréal was not just honest — she did not know how to be any other way.

“I’m fine, R,” she repeated, bumping her shoulder against his to soothe the mild sting in the words. Her smile was slightly red-tinted as she pulled out the folded kerchief she kept tucked in the bodice of her dress and wiped away the blood. “He did not expect me to spin back so quickly. It will heal soon enough.”

Her voice was tinged with wistfulness now, and Grantaire sympathized. They did not speak often on the subject of soulmates; as young dancers with an occasional tendency toward recklessness, the rapid healing and resistance to illness that lasted until one touched their soulmate had seemed like a gift, a pleasant side effect of a condition they otherwise did not notice. Now, it ached in the manner of an old bruise: faintly but deeply, and only when pressed on. 

Grantaire supposed it was meant to be reassuring, the knowledge that he would not — could not —  die until he had met the one who would supposedly complete him. But sometimes, when he awoke undamaged in a gutter after a night of trying to drink himself away, when the razor caught the edge of his jaw and the wound sealed almost before the blood had a chance to well, he wondered if even a body shattered in the Seine below the Pont au Change could be dragged forcibly back to the land of the living.

Floréal was still looking at him, her kerchief pressed delicately to her lip. 

“R,” she said, and it was at once a question and a warning. She had told him once that his eyes spoke more sharply than his tongue; it was one of the reasons why he most often sought refuge in sleep and drunken stupors. Only there could he keep his thoughts entirely to himself.

He made himself smile, made himself muss her loosened hair.

“Let’s have a look, then,” he said, nodding at the kerchief. Floréal eyed him suspiciously over the top of it, the afternoon sun weaving the earthy green of her irises with gold. “It should be all right by now.”

Her brows remained quirked, but she lowered the stained, wadded fabric.

Beneath, the wound swelled, glistened, and began to bleed again.

Softly, very softly, Grantaire swore.

Floréal’s eyes shot wide, and her hand flew to her mouth, catching the ruby drops that were still leaking from the cut. Her fingertips shone red; so did the edges of her teeth. Her look turned suddenly wild.

“Floréal,” Grantaire blurted out, the word half a caution and half a plea, but she had already turned tail and was barreling through the crowd, thrusting aside those who did not react quickly enough to her shouts of “Make way! Make way!” She was a blur of black and bronze, sweat-sheened skin and wind-whipped ebony lace, a spontaneous forest fire burning its way across the square — away from the crowd, toward a slight, nondescript figure headed in the direction of the Rue de Belle. Her dance partner — the mousy, freckled one she had pulled into the circle. The one who had not expected her to spin back so quickly, and had bloodied her lip by accident — her lip, which was not healing, when only that morning she had scraped her knees on the studio floor and watched as the wet pink flesh sealed over with smooth, soft brown skin.

Now Grantaire watched, open-mouthed, as his friend’s long, lean legs devoured the space between her and her soulmate.

Her _soulmate._

Floréal had a _soulmate._

Grantaire struggled to take a breath. His chest felt full, tight, and painful, his skin cold, his head swimming, as if he had been thrown into a freezing lake and left to drown; the earth seemed to sway beneath his feet. He resisted the urge to stretch his hand into the empty space that Floréal had occupied only moments before.

Floréal.

Soulmate.

Floréal.

Desperate for something to distract him from the scene unfolding at the edge of the square, Grantaire cut his fingernails into his palms, tiny crescent wounds that pricked briefly with blood before their rough edges sealed, softened, and faded altogether. The quartet had started up again, and the dancers with them; the couples only noticed Grantaire enough to sidestep him, whirling in and out of his peripheral vision, colorful specters in the pale September light. 

Almost blindly, Grantaire turned and stumbled out of the circle. His tongue felt like a foreign object in his own mouth, heavy and dry. He needed a drink. He needed to forget. He needed—

At full speed, without looking up, he slammed into something warm and solid.

Grantaire froze. The something — no, some _one —_ let out a muffled grunt. Hands settled on his upper arms. Eyes — sharp eyes, bright eyes, cool yet full of fire — settled on his face. Shock settled in his heart.

“Pardon me,” said an unfamiliar voice, startlingly close. It was a beautiful voice — golden and rich, weighty and warm, slow and deliberate as the sunrise. The kind of voice that Grantaire knew would stick in his memory like honey on his fingers: something sweet to lick off later, to remind him of the taste that had already faded from his tongue. 

“Pardon _me,”_ said Grantaire, a half-beat too late. His gaze snagged on tousled golden curls; on the healthy flush of a smooth, sun-browned cheek; on the clean, sharp line where a determined jaw met an elegantly curved throat. “Forgive me. I would have looked where I was going, but I’ve been told you can go blind if you stare directly into the sun.” He accompanied this with a quirk of his mouth and a flutter of his eyelashes. This young man seemed the type who would be repulsed by idle flirtations; his blood-red, custom-tailored waistcoat spoke of substantial wealth, while the glint in his eyes spoke of places to be and things to be done.

Just as Grantaire had predicted, his lips pursed, folding in on each other to form a firm, flat line. Grantaire’s own lips were dry; he wet them with a flick of his tongue. 

“Of course,” he added, dancing along the perilously fine line between absurd flirtation and plain babbling, “I have also heard that Apollo is a warm, passionate soul, and poetic, also. Perhaps blindness would be a small price to pay, to be near to him. What do you think?”

The young man slitted his eyes at Grantaire. “I think that I will always prefer the company of men to that of gods.”

“How lucky for me.” The strength behind Grantaire’s grins was waning; he wished that this man, however beautiful, would step aside and let him return to the loving embrace of his bed and his alcohol. “If you truly reject the company of your divine brethren, Phoebus Apollo, then perhaps you would deign to share a drink with me someday.”

It was a request meant to repel, not to seduce — a bar would cut Grantaire off before he could black out, and that was something he did not have patience for at the moment. But the young Apollo’s expression barely shifted.

“If you take your wine at the Café Musain,” he said, “and would not object to having multiple drinking companions, then you would be welcome tonight at the meeting.”

Grantaire blinked, lips parting. “Meeting?”

Fire sparked in Apollo’s gaze: not rage, but enthusiasm. “Tell me, are you a working man?”

Laughter bubbled up in Grantaire like bile. “I suppose you could say that.”

“A student?” the young man pressed. His weight moved onto the balls of his feet when he was speaking, and back again when he was done; he was very close, close enough for Grantaire to see the strands of lighter flaxen curling amongst the dark gold and tawny of his hair. “Tell me, Citizen — how would you like to see the fall of the king?”

Grantaire jerked back, a peal of laughter escaping him that held more venom than mirth. “Why?” he asked, voice turning acrid. “Are you going to push him down the palace stairs?”

Apollo’s face clouded, blue eyes snapping like heat lightning. “So you would scorn our cause.”

“What cause?” asked Grantaire with a curl of his lip. “Suicide by National Guard?”

To Grantaire’s surprise, the young Apollo didn’t immediately lash out— instead, his face went quickly and carefully blank, his frustration betrayed only by the muscle feathering faintly in his jaw. 

“If you have nothing to share but cynicism,” he said stiffly, his shoulders so low and tight that they pulled his coat smooth across his back, “then I will be on my way. When it is you as well as I who reaps the benefits when the monarchy is ended, perhaps you will rethink things, and join our midst.”

And then, with the sunlight glaring off his hair and his waistcoat gleaming like a bloodstain, he was gone. 

“Grantaire!” came a voice — Floréal’s voice, sounding full to bursting — and Grantaire twitched, rooted to the spot. Ahead of him, the young Apollo was about to vanish among the crowd, melting into their midst like a drizzle of golden honey into tea; behind him, he could hear the _pat-pat, pat-pat_ of Floréal’s satin shoes on the cobblestones, heading rapidly in his direction. “Grantaire!”

At the last possible second, he whipped around.

“‘Taire,” Floréal panted, hardly able to speak through her grin. At her side was the awkward, freckled boy, now flushed, looking dazed beyond coherent speech; his wide eyes were fixed on Floréal’s bright, animated face, almost unblinking, as if the thought of glancing away from her for a mere moment was unbearable. The backs of his fingers were curled against Floréal’s, touching but not yet entwined.

“I— I must go,” Grantaire blurted, smashing a fast, clumsy kiss against Floréal’s cheek as he squeezed her free hand, hard. “Enjoy your evening. I will… I will have a letter brought to you before dark.”

“Grantaire!” He felt delicate fingers on his wrist, pulled free of them before they could grip. Stumbled away.  “Come back — R, you don’t look well.”

“I am not,” he heard himself say, as if at distance, before he turned and tore away into the crowd.

~~~

 

The walk home was not long. Grantaire had moved many times over the years, rarely lingering in one house or apartment for longer than six or so months; his drunken self did not play well with haughty landlords (and neither did his sober self, for that matter). His current residence hardly warranted the name — a cramped flat at the seedy north end of the Rue du Belle, squeezed into the upper level of an apartment building that looked ready to slump over into the street. It was dim, tiny, and occasionally prone to leaks, but it had a window that opened in the direction in the Seine, and a door with a functioning lock. That was enough for him.

Soft, moist wood yielded under his fingers as he pushed through into the flat, yanking the spare key free of the lock as he went. Going to the hunched cabinet in the corner, he fumbled simultaneously for a match and a bottle of whiskey; he found one before the other, and fire pooled on his tongue before it leapt between his fingers. He lit one candle, then another, and another. His hand trembled. The match slipped from his fingers, struck the carpet. Went out. 

Floréal had a soulmate.

Ever since he’d seen that single drop of blood rise on his friend’s lip, the realization had grown within him like a cancer. For years, he had almost wished that Floréal were his soulmate — not because he was in love with her, but because she understood him. She was the only one who could tell the difference between a night when she could leave her liquor cabinet unlocked and a night when she shouldn’t, the only one willing to dump cold water down his throat or over his head when a hangover would’ve otherwise kept him chained to his bed. She was always there: a hand in his as they danced; an arm under his shoulders when she (rightfully) didn’t trust him to get home safe; a voice murmuring in his ear as he lay curled on the bathroom floor, an upturned glass lying a few feet from his left hand, a stained razor resting just beyond the reach of his right. She was safe, she was constant. She was home.

But she was also her own person, with a life that had begun before Grantaire — and would continue after.

Grantaire gripped the counter; his knuckles were white under the faint shimmer of the candles he’d managed to light. He considered fetching a glass, then drank straight from the bottle, trailing fire down his throat as he reached for another match. This time he got to five candles before an involuntary twitch of his fingers sent the match careening to the floor, where it fizzled out in a delicate wisp of smoke. He was panting slightly — he felt hollow, skeletal, as if every breath were escaping between the gaps in his ribs, never to reach his lungs. Even the whiskey wouldn’t settle in his stomach. For once he could find no enjoyment in the heat of it, in the pleasure that was made mostly of pain.

A streak of lucent gold suddenly cut across Grantaire’s hand like a brushstroke, and he turned his hazy eyes to the window. Outside, the sun was burning down, staining the sky as if with iodine; the Seine was brilliant with its reflected glow, blazing like the Phlegethon. The soft, chalky clouds in the east were starting to purple with approaching dusk.

Dusk. Floréal’s letter. Grantaire peeled himself back from the counter, bottle in hand, and crossed swiftly to the tiny desk in the corner; he was not drunk yet, only warm, and his balance was sound as he lowered his aching body into a chair. Suddenly self-conscious, he flicked a glance to his left, toward the couch, but his sister was not there: there were only faint indents in the threadbare cushions where Violetta had once lain. His sister’s visits tended to be more infrequent than not, as he would expect, considering she spent most of her nights in plush beds, her svelte frame wrapped in silk sheets, minimal clothing, and the arms of this nobleman or that one. She had no place of her own; whatever Grantaire had was hers as well. But Violetta was beautiful — _both exquisite and wise_ , read the letters that sometimes arrived at their shared address, _at once the incarnation of the glorious Venus and the omniscient Minerva_ — and that meant her business thrived. Rare were the nights she spent alone.

Tonight, it seemed, was not one of those nights — Grantaire’s fingertips skated across smooth stationery and a broken wax seal as he searched for an inkwell, the paper like satin against his skin. He glimpsed only the address — his own, prefaced by Violetta’s name in a official, unfamiliar hand — and the signature — sweeping, in more ways than one — before he held a candle to the letter’s creamy edge. The flame caught, and Grantaire inhaled a mouthful of the bittersweet smoke before he dropped the letter into the waste basket and left it to smolder. 

With the tang of whiskey and burning ink in the back of his throat, Grantaire smoothed a slightly rumpled sheet of paper across the desk and twisted the top off the inkwell. The quill that he and Violetta shared was going dull — she had been writing to many clients as of late — but he still put it to paper.

_My dearest Floréal._

He grimaced; scratched it out.

_Darling Floréal._

He smeared the words with one finger.

_Floréal._

The ink shone for a moment, black as blood in the half-light, before settling into the page. Grantaire hesitated for a moment before dipping for more ink and continuing. 

_I would like to apologize for my behavior earlier today; I confess it was unnecessarily brusque and entirely unexplained. I am ashamed to have deserted you in such a way._

He could practically hear Floréal’s whisper in his ear: _who are you, and where is my R?_

The quill paused in his hand, trembling; then, suddenly seized with frustration, he flung it down and tore the page in half. When he cast it into the waste basket, the smoke that rose from it was sour under his tongue. His breath was a knife in his throat. What to say? How to apologize? How much to confess — that he was afraid to lose her, that she was one of his dearest friends, that he was sorry in advance if he drank himself senseless before her eventual, inevitable wedding? 

No.

He fumbled to open the bottom drawer of the desk, fingers slipping on the cold, grooved brass. Heart beating his ribs like a moth against a windowpane, he yanked out a fresh sheet of paper, so fast that the edge slit open his palm. Breath hissed through his teeth as he reared back, gripping his hand.

He took a moment to breathe, clenching his fingers as the hot, prickling pain built deep and swelled slowly upward. The cut was clean, and fairly shallow, but it still hurt like hell; the skin around the wound was wet and tender, already growing warm.

“Damn it,” he murmured, grabbing a clean-looking handkerchief and starting to mop up the mess. His brow pinched; he was used to the ache of overused muscles and the sting of scraped knees, but this was a different kind of pain. The wound pulsed with his heart. “ _Fuck.”_

He pressed the wadded kerchief into the cut until it bloomed, dark and full as a late summer rose. The curses kept flowing under his breath, a creek swollen by a storm; the pain seemed to deepen with each passing second, as did the hue of the handkerchief. He wished he had a reason to paint with such a color — but then, perhaps not. He didn’t need any more reminders that humanity could produce beautiful things only through suffering.

He shook his head, grimaced, and peeled away the handkerchief.

Later, Grantaire would wonder why he hadn’t wept. Why he hadn’t leaped from his seat and burst out onto the Rue de Belle and run all the way to Floréal’s door. Why he hadn’t thrown open a window and screamed his triumph to the sky — for it must be a triumph, mustn’t it? It must be. It must.

But he didn’t. He simply sat — sat, and shook, and watched the blood from the unhealed cut thread its way down his wrist. Watched it slip and shimmer across his skin. Watched it run and swell and shine, like paint, like wine, like the red string of fate. 

Like a promise, driven by the beat of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :) I really hope you enjoyed this; if you did, please leave kudos or a comment; they really do mean the world to me and never fail to brighten my day. If you didn't, please let me know what I can do better! I will attempt to write the next chapter as quickly as possible, but things are a tiny bit crazy right now. I'll do my best! Thank you for reading :)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Check me out on tumblr; feel free to ask me anything :) ](http://whos-there-french-revolution.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second collision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back :) Things have been kind of crazy lately. I hope you'll forgive the (relative) brevity of this chapter, and any typos that I may have missed. Hope you enjoy.

“If you’re asking me, I'd say that it went rather well.”

“Well,” Enjolras repeated, still vaguely breathless. His chest felt as full and tight as an overinflated balloon; he had expected it to pop by now, to burst into shreds as if caught in the door as it closed behind the last of the first meeting’s attendees, but it had not — if anything, it had expanded, leaving him lightheaded and not a little bit giddy. “How would you define that?”

Combeferre smiled. It was a tired look, ever so slightly dulled by the stress of the past few days, but there was light behind it that not even complete exhaustion could snuff out.

“Well,” he said, nudging wire-framed spectacles up his broad nose with the pad of one thumb, “we weren’t the only ones here.”

Enjolras scoffed without vitriol. The hour was late, and the bar was technically closed; Madame Houcheloup had retreated to her overhead apartment about half an hour before, leaving behind a key, a smile, and a request that they lock the door on their way out. 

 _She must be grateful for the extra clientele,_ Enjolras had remarked when the door closed behind her swishing skirts, having not missed the softness in her eyes when she bid them good night. _She has been very generous._

 _One does not gain profit from new clientele if one does not charge them for their second, third, or fourth rounds,_ Combeferre had replied with some amusement. _Just because you are not yet proud of yourself does mean others cannot be proud of you, Enjolras._

Enjolras had swallowed any response to that with a mouthful of Houcheloup’s infamous claret. He had done nothing to be proud of. Not yet.

  “Truly, though, the size of your audience was hardly unimpressive,” said Combeferre, relaxing a little into his seat, a finger hooked in his cravat. His gaze was dark, warm. Fond. “I’d be pleased if I were you.”

“Half of them came in hopes of beholding a comedy,” said Enjolras, voice scathing. “I doubt they shall return.”

“It is not unusual to use laughter to conceal fear.” Combeferre swirled the dregs of his wine but didn’t drink them. “Change is a frightening thing.”

“Change has not happened yet.”

“But Enjolras has happened,” Combeferre said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I assure you that change cannot be far behind.”

Enjolras could not help but smile back.

 

They let the night run long, firelight running over the bar like a gossamer tablecloth until the candles burned down and the sun began to burn its way back up. Alcohol had a tendency to mellow Combeferre, but it ignited Enjolras — his blood was oil, gasoline, set to burning by sparks of liquor. He needn’t let it consume him; only kindle the flame.

“A march, perhaps,” he murmured, quill dancing in his hand as he scribbled on the back of the meeting’s lengthy receipt, conserving his writing space by segueing occasionally into the shorthand he had begun to develop for his schoolwork. “We call the people together, and we march on the palace. He could turn one man away, or two, but he cannot deny the whole of Paris.”

“Don’t be foolish.” 

Had it come from anyone else, Enjolras might have bristled, but it was Combeferre. A sculptor was not called belligerent when he whittled a piece of raw marble into something beautiful; Combeferre sought only to make something better of Enjolras, something sharper and smoother. 

“You would think it foolish?” Enjolras asked, not cutting, but curious. “Why is that?”

“The National Guard would water the streets with your blood,” said Combeferre, matter-of-fact. He, too was scratching at a sheet of paper, but it was lines spiraling out beneath his quill, not words — a luna moth, complete with billowing silk wings, delicately splayed legs, and feathery antennae that curled the way Enjolras’ hair did when it was freshly washed. He had already labeled some of it, his letters neat and gathered tightly together, much like Combeferre himself. 

Enjolras said, “If the seeds we plant require watering, I would offer myself gladly.”

“I do not doubt it,” Combeferre replied, shading the moth’s thorax. “But the National Guard would not settle for just one man. Especially not one who cannot yet die.”

Enjolras stilled for a beat, then kept writing. 

“It is not a gamble you would take,” Combeferre pressed. His quill clicked as he set it down, the tip wiped dry on the edge of his paper. “We both know that, even if you will not say it.”

“It is not a gamble I would take.”

“If you’re trying to prove you are not stubborn, you’ve just failed.”

Enjolras shot him a sour look, and Combeferre laughed.

“Fine,” Enjolras huffed, blotting out the words _March on CdV_ and setting his quill across his inkwell. “What do you suggest?”

Combeferre smiled. 

“A break,” he said simply.

There was a heavy beat of silence.

Then: “A break,” Enjolras repeated, incredulous. “You must be joking. We have just discovered that we are not alone, Combeferre; we should be seizing this opportunity. We should be planning—“

“We should be _sleeping,”_ Combeferre pointed out, dipping the toes of his boots in a pool of milky pre-dawn light, “but I know you will not do that, so we will go elsewhere. Somewhere you _cannot_ bring your books,” he added, noticing the recalcitrant curl of Enjolras’ mouth and shoulders. “You spend so much time with your nose in them that I sometimes wonder how you breathe.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“Yes, but at least I take my meals at regular hours.” Combeferre pushed his chair back. “Come along, my friend.”

Enjolras glanced at his friend, then at his quill, fingers itching.

Combeferre’s hand was heavy and firm on his shoulder. “I will not have you starving to death on my watch.”

“In the streets, there are people who are truly starving,” Enjolras retorted, but he was already rising, drawing his coat off the back of his chair and shrugging into it. Enjolras liked September, liked the way the late summer rains left the sky bright and cold and clean, liked the young, frolicking winds that pushed at him and bit his cheeks when there was no longer any sun to chase them away. In Paris, there was a season for everything: summer for blossoming, autumn for death, winter for cleansing, and for rebirth… spring. 

The city was an ailing flower, Enjolras knew. At her very roots, she was the same, but her petals were falling, her leaves curling, her colors fading fast. Come autumn, she would die, and when the winter swept through she would be laid to rest in a grave of Parisian snow. Then it would be only a matter of time. A matter of patience.

For her, Enjolras would learn to be patient.

 

The Rue du Belle was slippery with dew as Combeferre and Enjolras left La Lune Rousse — a tiny but exceptional pâtisserie squeezed between a tailor shop and a poorly disguised opium den — with warm pastries in hand, fingers coated in glaze and gritty sugar. As always, Combeferre paid — his parents provided well for him, claiming that if their son was going to get himself killed trying to start a revolution, he might as well do it with a full stomach — and, as always, Enjolras promised to pay him back (which he would, even if the thinning material of his shoes and undershirts wouldn’t thank him for it). Combeferre ate slowly, his dark, thoughtful gaze turned to the paling sky; Enjolras, who was already licking sugar from under his ragged nails, was nearly done.

“Where are we going?” he asked, when both his fingers and the pastry’s wax-paper wrapping were clean of icing. Combeferre was moving leisurely but with purpose, eyes tracking the horizon in a way that suggested more than a simple pre-dawn stroll; the soft, tender light creeping over the distant hills lent a rosy cast to his dark skin.

“You remember Bahorel?” he asked, pausing at a deserted intersection before taking a left onto a narrow side street.

Enjolras hesitated for only a beat before following. “The law student?”

“He is a law student, yes,” said Combeferre, licking the last shreds of pastry from his fingertips, “but he prefers to occupy his time in other ways. Namely, boxing.”

“Boxing,” Enjolras repeated. Being lithe in frame and fair of face, men were usually no more compelled to strike him than they would be to strike a woman; this was not to say he had never thrown a punch, of course, but he didn’t make a habit of it. (His friends, however, did make a habit of gripping his elbows whenever he took it upon himself to educate ignorant loudmouths.) “Does this fact hold some relevance at the moment?”

A smile teased at Combeferre’s mouth. “Well. If you’re seeking passionate young men with a penchant for acting out, I can’t think of a better place to look.”

In the back of Enjolras’ mind, possibility bloomed. 

“Combeferre,” he said, “you’re a genius.”

 

“I take it back. I take it back, I take it _all_ back, Combe— _would you watch where you’re going—_ ferre!”

Enjolras was floundering, a dinghy caught up a tempest, struggling to keep his head above in the surface in a pulsing sea of sweaty bodies and flailing limbs. Somebody was shouting, somebody else was singing, and somebody _else_ was cursing —rather fluently, in fact, and with impressive volume. One of these somebodies was much louder than the rest. Another one of these somebodies sounded much more desperate than the rest. Despite popular expectation, only one of these was Enjolras. (Which one, precisely, remains a subject of debate.)

“I, on the other hand, do not,” Combeferre shouted over the din. Being taller, he could actually see what was happening in the makeshift ring in the center, and his eyes danced like that of a child attending the summer fairs for the first time. Had he not been busy straining for air that was not thick with heat and perspiration, Enjolras might’ve envied his view. “Look — there’s Bahorel!” 

He was not wrong. Bahorel was standing on the far side of the ring, sinewed arms crossed over his chest, teeth flashing like lightning as he laughed. At his side stood a warm-eyed, sharp-featured student — Joly, Enjolras recalled — with his arm slung around a young man with an impossibly smooth scalp, bruised lip, and rueful expression.

 _Lesgles,_ Joly had told the group as his companion righted the chair he had accidentally upended. _But we call him Bossuet._

The trio seemed delightfully at ease with each another, pushing at one another and jesting. But their attention was clearly on what was happening in the ring. As soon as the crowd undulated again, Enjolras darted through an opening and found himself right on the outskirts, so close that he could hear the muffled grunts of the combatants and the moist slap of skin striking skin. It was not a formal fight, but a rough one: bare, ruthless, ruleless. Punches were not being pulled. Missteps were not forgiven. In the blur of the battle, Enjolras swore he caught a glimpse of bared teeth: white for one second, bright red in the next. A chill crawled down the ladder of his spine.

Enjolras glanced down and knew at once that the planks beneath his feet remembered the taste of blood. That over the years it had soaked into their marrow, layer by layer, until it turned red as a beating heart. 

The friends they had in this room — Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet — were not the majority here. It was not a place of sport; it was—

“Look,” Combeferre whispered; Enjolras had not even heard him approach. “That one — he is healing.”

He motioned discreetly to the larger of the two fighters: brawny, russet-haired, as broad and sturdy as an ox. After a moment, Enjolras saw that Combeferre was correct — even as his opponent hurled punches, ducking his arms, aiming for the beady eyes tucked under his heavily furrowed brow, the bruises and gashes seemed to wash away, like wet watercolor running off a canvas. The pain in his screams did not live in his wounds. It was behind his eyes. 

“They come to free themselves of it,” Enjolras breathed. “The anger, the pain, the fear. The animals inside.”

Combeferre’s exhale was slightly ragged. “Do you know how it feels to love something without knowing what it is?”  
Enjolras thought of their cause, the late nights, the books spilling off the bedside table, the notes that Enjolras had scrawled in his moments of spontaneous fervency and that Combeferre had translated into legible handwriting and intelligible French. He thought of Paris, of her streets, her rivers, the way the night sky shimmered in the Seine.  He thought of France. Thought of _Patria._

_No._

Combeferre spoke so quietly that Enjolras could barely hear him. “Look in his eyes, and you will know.”

Enjolras did not have time to inquire further before the door behind them slammed open and more spectators poured in, shoving Enjolras and Combeferre toward the front; Combeferre barked out a word of caution as the crowd swelled around them, a wave pushed higher and higher by the wind. Enjolras stumbled; felt Combeferre’s hand on his arm, then didn’t. Was engulfed by bodies, then wasn’t.

The hush that fell was the kind you only heard if you were the source of it.

The flame-haired fighter’s yell was slow to process in Enjolras’s mind, a knife slowly tearing through the fabric of his consciousness. His body did not answer to him anymore; it did not answer to anything. His eyes told him that the blow was coming. Experience told him that he would not be standing once it found its mark. Logic told him there would be no escape.

A voice made rough by shouting or sobbing told him, “ _Get out of the way!”_

He was on the ground, but there was no pain. The flame-haired fighter was still there, but he was not advancing; he was doubled over, his breath coming in wet gasps, thick shoulders heaving as he clutched one huge, calloused palm to his eye. There was blood on his brow. Blood on his fingers. Blood on his eyelid, welling from three long gouges that streaked from the center of his slick forehead to the bruised edge of his left cheekbone, too ragged to have been made by anything but fingernails and fury.

Enjolras breathed. Breathed again.

There was still no pain.

The flame-haired fighter was not a fighter anymore; his wounds were already healing, but something had killed the fire behind his eyes. He blinked slowly, and the cuts flickered, fine scraps of scarlet thread.

Someone from the crowd yelled, “Concede?”

The man’s breath was heavy; his voice took up only a fraction of the space that his body did, but it was enough. “Concede.”

There was a whirlwind of motion, of voices. Enjolras was still on the floor. The world swam circles around his head; it was as if there were just one point that the globe turned upon, and that point was his own body. 

But there was not just one point. 

There were two — for the redheaded man’s opponent remained in the ring. He stood, watching, waiting. He shook. With one leanly muscled arm, he hugged his own waist; the other hung loose at his side. From afar, Enjolras examined the young man’s fingernails. Red as the floorboards. Red as a beating heart.

_Look in his eyes, and you will know._

“Here,” the fighter said, and then he was gripping Enjolras’ forearm, and Enjolras was gripping back, and they were both upright again. His eyes were green. “I’d stay in the back if I were you.” His mouth was bitter. “Or, better yet, I’d stay at home.”

Enjolras’ instincts had regained full functionality, and they tried to fling darts from his tongue, but instead he faltered.

He said, “The square,” and faltered again. The young fighter regarded him coolly; Enjolras looked closer, searched for the space behind his eyes, and found locked doors.

_Get out of the way!_

Enjolras inhaled again. “You were in the square, and you—“

_That one — he is healing._

This one was not. Even covered in blood and grime and seeping wounds, he was fire — the kind that only bloomed after dark, that would only stop when there was nothing left to keep it burning, that never lived to see dawn. The kind that would be ashes before the sun could touch it. He was blue and black and purple and green and red, red, red.

Enjolras said, “You were in the square, before the meeting. You danced with the woman in black.”

Something approached the locked doors and looked through the keyhole. “Yes.”

Enjolras said, “You were running away.”

A hiss of breath. “And somehow, you are not.”

“Why would I?”

The young fighter hesitated, fingers testing his throat; there was a bruise there, luminously violet, deepening in hue with each passing second. The kind of bruise one might get if they intercepted a blow intended for someone of slighter stature than they. 

Enjolras wondered who loved him, who called this wild creature _my love, my beautiful one, my soulmate_. Would it be warm salve or warm lips that soothed his wounds tonight?

“Because I did not take you for a fool,” the young man said at last. His gaze abruptly focused, honing in on Enjolras’ face, studying him with unabashed intensity. “This is no place for you.”

Enjolras thought first of his tailored coat — the only thing he had brought from his family’s estate, the last gift he’d ever received — but the fighter was not looking at that. Instead, his eyes danced over Enjolras’ face — always moving, never lingering in one place for longer than a split second, as if Enjolras were a snowflake in his palm and he wanted to memorize the pattern of it before it melted between his fingers.

“And why is that?” he heard himself say.

The fighter curled his lip. An old scar pulled it slightly to the left. “I think there is a rather famous set of books warning of what happens when angels fall this far.”

Enjolras opened his mouth, but the young fighter was already turning away, wiping blood and sweat from around his eyes. 

“Bahorel,” Enjolras heard him say, “Joly, Bossuet. You should go home.”

Joly squawked in protest; Bahorel moved close, murmuring in low tones. The fighter shook his head, violently, and Bahorel’s lips pursed.

“—carry you home if I must,” Enjolras caught, rumbling and deeply fond. “You must take care with your old habits, R. I fear they will no longer treat you so well.”

 _R._ Enjolras gathered it in his mouth but didn’t dare speak it aloud.

Meanwhile, R laughed; it was at once wet and brittle, as if someone had crushed an egg in their fist. Had the bruise on his throat gotten bigger?

“Because old habits die hard, yes?” he said, curling his hand over a red splotch on the side of his ruined shirt. “And now I can as well.”

Enjolras shifted, caught between two equally powerful magnets — the fresh air filtering through the open door as some of the spectators began to depart, and the gravelled, blood-thick baritone of R’s voice. Questions surged to the tip of Enjolras’ tongue and stuck there.

_What is it inside you that you fear so much? What do you hope to bleed out of yourself? How many times are you willing to try?_

As if Enjolras had actually spoken, R looked back — just a glance, a flicker of gray-green. For a split second, something in his face seemed to tighten, and something behind his eyes opened wide.

Then he turned back to his friends, and, with a quick word to each, was lost to the crowd. 

In the same fraction of a moment, Combeferre caught Enjolras’ arm in an iron grip, words spouting from him in a frantic rush: “ _God,_ Enjolras, what were you _thinking?_ It’s like a dogfight in that ring, you don’t know them all, you don’t know what they might’ve done—“

“They didn’t touch me.” The half-truth came out a bit faint. The smudged fingerprints on his wrist were starting to itch;  R’s blood had already dried, a few shades darker than Enjolras’ jacket.

“You haven’t slept,” Combeferre said, as if Enjolras hadn’t even spoken; he kept one arm tight around Enjolras’ shoulders, using the other to cut a path through the crowd. “Your thoughts are cluttered. You need food and you need rest and you need to _find your sense of self-restraint —_ God knows I’ve never seen you use it, but you must have one somewhere. Here, come in front of me.”

“I’m not a child,” Enjolras spat, slipping through the door ahead of his friend, but Combeferre paid him no mind. _“Combeferre!_ ”

“What did he say to you?” They were outside now, tracking rapidly back up the same side street they’d arrived by. “That man. The fighter.”

“Nothing of note.” Flinty.

“Enjolras.”

_I think there is a rather famous set of books warning of what happens when angels fall this far._

“He called me a fool,” Enjolras said, teeth grinding.

“And said nothing else?”

_“Nothing of note.”_

Combeferre set his jaw, quickened his pace, but didn’t reply. Enjolras had to lengthen his stride to keep pace.

“You speak as if you know him,” he said, earning a sidelong glare for his trouble. “Do you?”

Combeferre gave a tight shake of his head. “Not well.” A beat. “But I am close with some who know him _very_ well.”

“Joly?”

“And others.”

“You fear for me.” Enjolras was certain of this; affection and indignation were both burning in his blood. “I can see it. I can hear it. _Combeferre._ ”

Combeferre came a to halt, eyes snapping. His temper was slow, and his anger was clearly not directed at Enjolras, but it still pricked the hairs on the back of Enjolras’ neck. 

Quietly, he said, “I wish it was you I feared for, Enjolras.” 

There was quiet between them, heavy and still. The morning was misty; normally Enjolras enjoyed dawns like these, but now he felt detached from the rest of the world, as if he would not find what he expected if he reached through the fog. His breath was loud in his ears.

“Come on,” Combeferre said at last. The calm had returned to his voice, but it was imperfect, a lake still trembling faintly with the memory of ripples. “We have class in the afternoon.”

“Class,” Enjolras repeated, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Yes.” He hesitated. “Combeferre, did I leave something back at that… place? I feel as though I have forgotten something.”

Combeferre glanced at him; shrugged. “I don’t believe so.”

“All right.”

“All right.”

They were silent the whole way home.

 

It was nearly seven by the time Enjolras collapsed onto his bed, still in his clothes, boots still laced up his ankles. He could hear Combeferre moving about in their tiny washroom, making a cold bath of the water left over from the afternoon previous; Enjolras considered scrounging up some water for himself, but his bed pressed close around him, the blankets warm, the pillows cool. His eyelids fluttered; closed altogether.

His mind was full of R. He was fighting; his fists blurred, neat and swift as hummingbirds, and his teeth were bared in a snarl. His injuries were still there, down to the bruise on his throat, but he was no longer bleeding — instead of blood, his body ran with color. With each twist of his lean, bare torso, Enjolras saw more of the images blossoming over his skin: birds, wolves, moths, musical notes that spilled a sonata down his back. Faces: the elegant young woman Enjolras had seen dancing in the square, so strikingly beautiful and dark of skin that Enjolras thought instantly of the pharaoh-queen Hatshepsut. Snatches from classical literature: untranslated verses from the Odyssey that swirled into eddies on his upper arms, a bow and lyre, a young man in armor that was not his, a boy hurtling toward an unseen ocean on wings of golden fire. 

None of the images held constant — they moved as R did, with swiftness and grace and unpredictability. They almost hurt to focus on, but Enjolras did it anyway, straining to take them all in at once. It took him a moment to realize that R could not be fighting, for he had no opponent that Enjolras could see, and yet he was: he whipped and spun and kicked and snarled but the blows landed nowhere, harmed nothing.

Enjolras tried to call out his name, but the sound stopped in his throat as the scene changed. He was on the floor of the fighting ring, and R was reaching down to him, his long, slender fingers caked in blood and dust. When they closed around Enjolras’ wrist, he was keenly aware of the thrum of his pulse against R’s palm. Green eyes met his own, wide and fathomless, and Enjolras’ breath turned sharp in his chest.

“Thank you,” he breathed, as R faded into the pool of sunlight at the end of the bed and the dim contours of his apartment crept back in. He could still feel the warmth of R’s grip, smell the blood on his skin, see the bruise that should’ve been shadowing Enjolras’ eye instead.

Except it wouldn’t have. It would’ve healed. Even if he _had_ sustained injuries in the ring, he reminded himself, there would be nothing left of them now.

Nothing left at all.

Enjolras squeezed his eyes shut, but the color-drenched R from his dreams did not return.

“Thank you,” he whispered again, and knew what he had forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :) Hope you enjoyed. If you did, please leave comments and/or kudos; both mean the world to me, but comments especially. If you liked it, please tell me what you liked, so I can keep doing that! If there's anything you didn't like, please let me know that as well. I love talking to people. Stay tuned for Chapter 3, which should hopefully be along soon.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here!](http://whos-there-french-revolution.tumblr.com)
> 
> NOTE: I MAY YET MAKE EDITS TO THIS CHAPTER. Nothing major, just cleaning up the prose at the end when I'm not dead exhausted.


End file.
